Thank you for writing this comment, this is exactly what I thought while reading the article.
I’d like to add a couple of extra points: - B12 is not produced by animals, but by a certain type of bacteria in the soil. Our depleted soil doesn’t produce it anymore, so B12 has to be artificially produced and given to animals—because they need it too—and, by eating those animals, we absorb their B12. It’s just easier and causes way less suffering to directly eat my B12 as a supplement every day. - The best source of omega 3 is not fish, as many think. The same applies to calcium (the best source is not milk) and even to vitamins found only in plant-based food (like Vitamin C in oranges). There are so many misconceptions, primarily driven by marketing campaigns, that we are just used to connecting one type of nutrient to one type of food, because nobody has ever told us that there were better alternatives. - In general, people don’t diversify: they eat the same vegetables over and over again, and that’s the primary issue when it comes to vitamin and mineral absorption. They also don’t know how to combine them (e.g. to better absorb iron from plant-based sources, we need to combine it with food rich in vitamin C (e.g. eating dark chocolate in your breakfast yogurt? Have a glass of warm water an lemon on the side. Lentil soup for dinner? Combine it with kale or broccoli)
To conclude: no diet is healthy if you don’t diversify. And between a well planned omnivore diet and a well planned plant-based diet, the second one has been proven to be healthier.
Thank you for writing this comment, this is exactly what I thought while reading the article.
I’d like to add a couple of extra points:
- B12 is not produced by animals, but by a certain type of bacteria in the soil. Our depleted soil doesn’t produce it anymore, so B12 has to be artificially produced and given to animals—because they need it too—and, by eating those animals, we absorb their B12. It’s just easier and causes way less suffering to directly eat my B12 as a supplement every day.
- The best source of omega 3 is not fish, as many think. The same applies to calcium (the best source is not milk) and even to vitamins found only in plant-based food (like Vitamin C in oranges). There are so many misconceptions, primarily driven by marketing campaigns, that we are just used to connecting one type of nutrient to one type of food, because nobody has ever told us that there were better alternatives.
- In general, people don’t diversify: they eat the same vegetables over and over again, and that’s the primary issue when it comes to vitamin and mineral absorption. They also don’t know how to combine them (e.g. to better absorb iron from plant-based sources, we need to combine it with food rich in vitamin C (e.g. eating dark chocolate in your breakfast yogurt? Have a glass of warm water an lemon on the side. Lentil soup for dinner? Combine it with kale or broccoli)
To conclude: no diet is healthy if you don’t diversify. And between a well planned omnivore diet and a well planned plant-based diet, the second one has been proven to be healthier.